


You're in a prison with no windows, so I'll tear at every brick til the light comes in (Haunted and Holy)

by fickle_fixations



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: 2x02 spoilers, 2x03 spoilers, F/M, Gen, Grief, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, I'm not good at tagging, Mourning, breaking down language barriers, frenchie is a ball of regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:40:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26291284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fickle_fixations/pseuds/fickle_fixations
Summary: Set right after 2x03.Kimiko tries to deal with what happened and Frenchie takes care of her."I will try to understand. If you let me, mon coeur, I will learn your language. I will listen to everything you tell me from now on. I won’t let anything bad happen to you again.”"Je suis à toi."
Relationships: Kimiko & Kenji, The Female | Kimiko/The Frenchman
Comments: 16
Kudos: 108





	You're in a prison with no windows, so I'll tear at every brick til the light comes in (Haunted and Holy)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very mad at the writers for a lot of things that have happened, but I still want to enjoy the show so I wrote this to try to justify everything/channel my emotions at characters instead of real people who really (in my opinion) messed up.
> 
> Translations of the little French bits at the end

Kimiko was still staring at the black screen, her eyes so intense that Frenchie almost thought that they might turn to lasers any minute and burn a hole right through the tv.

She hadn’t moved for hours. After Stormfront’s press conference, the rest of the boys had gone off to their own separate rooms to try and get some sleep as best they could. But she had stayed right there on the ground, her legs curled up to her chest, her eyes burning with the rage and fire of a hundred thousand suns.

Frenchie knew all too well how trauma worked. He knew her mind was probably playing Stormfront’s words and her brother’s last moments over and over and over and over.

Every once in a while, he saw a snarl cross her lips or a few tears fall down her cheeks.

Since she hadn’t moved, he hadn’t either. He just stood there, watching her. It was funny that now, after she’d already been through what was probably the worst possible thing that could have happened to her,  _ now  _ more than ever, he felt the need to protect her. 

It hurt him to see her like this. He could hardly imagine what she was going through. He could hardly imagine what it must be like to have all that grief trapped inside you and no one who could hear your screams.

He couldn’t speak her language but maybe he could at least do something.

He got up from where he had been leaning against the pillar, watching over her this whole time. His legs ached and his shoulder was a bit numb. He wondered how long they’d been there. He had nearly forgotten how easy it was to lose track of time when you always lived in places without windows. 

He grabbed the cleanest towel he could find at MM’s medic station and poured half a bottle of water on it.

Frenchie slowly approached where Kimiko was sitting, being careful not to startle her. 

The way she looked now reminded him of the first time he ever saw her.

Curled up. Staring. Trapped. 

The first time he saw her she had been trapped in a cage, but now, she was trapped in her head. And she was trapped in this place - in a world without light or hope.

He could practically see her emotions written out in her eyes, coming and going in flashes. Grief. Rage. Anguish.  _ Rage. _

As he got closer, her eyes flicked up to meet his. He wondered what she thought of him now.

He got down on his knees in front of her. She still didn’t move.

Her fists were clenched so tightly her knuckles were white and- Frenchie heard a soft, wet ‘splat.’ Blood was dripping, nearly flowing down from her palms.

He felt his heart break in his chest.

“Oh, no no no  _ mon coeur _ ,” he said, as soothingly as he could as he held back his own tears.

He gently grabbed her wrists and held her still-clenched fists in his lap. She didn’t resist but she didn’t really try to move either. She just watched him, as if she were detached from her hands and her whole body. It was like she was far away - a thousand miles deep into a cavern in her own mind.

He wrapped his fingers around her own and pried her fingers away from her palms, first one hand, then the other. All the while he muttered gentle words. ‘ _ Mon cher coeur… tes pauvres mains _ …’

He watched as the deep, bloody marks her fingernails had left closed up and healed before his eyes. He’d seen her body heal itself several times before, but it still filled him with awe. Kimiko was a miracle of a person. Why was it that someone so… someone who might as well be an angel herself was constantly dragged through layer after layer of hell?

Once her wounds were fully healed he took the damp towel and wiped away the blood from her hands and wrists. He took his time, cleaning away the blood and bits of flesh from beneath each fingernail.

He then moved to sit on the couch behind her. He ran his fingers through her hair, removing the larger pieces of whale guts. Then he ran small sections of her hair on a clean part of the towel to get off the blood.

He finally sat back down beside her. Her exhausted eyes met his. 

He wiped away the dirt and blood away from her forehead and cheek as best he could. She closed her eyes, and he thought he felt her lean into his touch. 

When he was finished and she opened her eyes again, Frenchie didn’t see so much rage or anguish in Kimiko’s eyes just then. He just saw weariness. She looked like how he imagined he had looked as a boy - after the 60th time he had tried to escape his father only to be dragged back to be tortured and imprisoned. She looked like someone who had died so many times only for some cruel force to bring her back to life, simply to be tortured once again.

How could he have let this happen?

“I…” he began, his voice so quiet it was just above a whisper, “I’m so sorry mon coeur.”

He looked away from her, now, his gaze fixing on where her blood had stained the floor.

“I should have never called  _ Charcutier _ . If I would have known... If I would have just listened to you, we could have gone to get him together, just you and I.”

He couldn’t say it out loud, but he knew that so many things he had done and hadn’t done had led to her brother’s death. He wished he could go back and change everything. Or even change just one thing. Then maybe her brother would still be alive. Then  _ his heart _ wouldn’t be breaking.

“I don’t know what it’s like to lose a brother.” he looked back up at her, “I haven’t been very close to anyone in a very long time; not before you. I will probably never understand what you’re going through, but, I will try to understand.”

“If you let me, _ mon coeur _ , I will learn your language. I will listen to  _ everything _ you tell me from now on. I won’t let anything bad happen to you again.”

He leaned his head back against the couch and sighed. He knew he was being selfish. After all this, there was no reason she would want to stay with them anymore. He had thought he could keep her safe but after everything that happened, he saw that that was a foolish notion.

“But you don’t deserve any of this  _ mon coeur _ . You don’t deserve the havoc that follows  _ Charcutier _ and I around like a mangy dog.”

He opened his eyes again. 

“I’ve made enough money from the drug deals - I can get you out of here. I know someone who can bring you safely to Japan or Canada or anywhere you want to go, so you can be away from all of this. They didn’t show your face on the TV so-”

He was cut off when he felt her head slump against his chest.

She shook her head ever so slightly, then curled her fingers around the fabric of his shirt.

He let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

He wrapped his arms around her as he began to feel a spot on his shirt grow damp from her tears, letting her know that if she really wished to stay, he would do things right this time. He would listen, and he would do everything he could to protect her.

* * *

“What was his name?” Frenchie asked quietly.

Kimiko pointed to her lips then pressed the fingertips of her right hand together and brought them to her left palm, covering the right with her left fingers.  _ I called him Mouse. _

_ Mouse _ Frenchie signed. “He loved you so much. Every moment you were with him I saw it.”

Her grasp on his shirt grew tighter and she pressed her eyes shut as more tears fell.

Eventually, her grasp loosened again, and her hand dropped into his lap. It was probably daybreak by now, but she was finally asleep.

He rested his head on hers and finally let his own tears fall freely.

“I love you,  _ mon coeur _ .” he whispered. “ _ Je suis à toi. _ ”

Kimiko’s eyes fluttered open to look up at him. She held one of her hands in a fist over her heart and with her other she pressed her finger to his arm.

_ I love you. _

**Author's Note:**

> 'Mon cher coeur… tes pauvres mains…’ - 'My dearest/precious heart... your poor hands...'  
> 'Je suis à toi' - 'I am yours'
> 
> Also the subtitle (Haunted and Holy) comes from Creature by half•alive:  
> Look inside my heart and find a perilous ravine/Carved within the beauty, the darkness in between/Standing in the balance of complete and incomplete/I identify the echo of what is and what will be///I am creation, both haunted and holy/Made in glory/Even the depths of the night cannot blind me/When You guide me
> 
> Also, you can check out my Tumblr for more content and information about my writing :)


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